Barton Gellman, Glenn Greenwald feud over NSA leaker

The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald on Monday blasted investigative reporter Barton Gellman for making “false” claims about the man they shared as a source: Edward Snowden.

The public tiff between two journalists who have led the way on disclosing National Security Agency surveillance offers a rare window into high-stakes negotiations between reporters and their sources. It illustrates the balance between publishing secrets and protecting the nation’s security — and shows the risks that a source thought to be exclusive to one outlet might peddle his news scoop elsewhere.

On Sunday evening, the Post published a story by Gellman detailing his interactions with Snowden. Gellman wrote that Snowden asked for a guarantee that the Post would publish, within 72 hours, all the PowerPoint slides he provided on PRISM. When Gellman said he couldn’t promise that, Snowden went to Greenwald, according to Gellman’s account.

Greenwald fired back via Twitter on Monday morning.

“Bart Gellman’s claims about Snowden’s interactions with me - when, how and why - are all false,” Greenwald wrote on Twitter.

On the issue of conditions for publishing the information from Snowden, Greenwald tweeted, “I have no idea whether he had any conditions for WP, but he had none for us: we didn’t post all the slides.” He also wrote he had been “working with” Snowden since February, “long before anyone spoke to Bart Gellman.”

In the back-to-back scoop, Greenwald struck first in The Guardian with his bombshell about sweeping NSA surveillance of phone calls, while Gellman followed up quickly in the Post with the revelation about PRISM.

The spat continued during the day on Monday, with Gellman writing on Twitter: “Snowden didn’t bolt when I refused guarantees, just quit going steady.”

In his Post piece, Gellman described a series of “indirect contacts” he had with Snowden before their first “direct exchange” on May 16, Gellman wrote in an account for The Washington Post about his exchanges with his source. Snowden — who chose the name Verax, or “truth teller” in Latin for his code name, and called Gellman “Brassbanner” — “dropped a bombshell” on May 24 and asked Gellman for a guarantee that The Washington Post would publish, within 72 hours, all the PowerPoint slides he provided on PRISM.